Brian Simoneau’s first book won the De Novo Prize and will be published by C&R Press in 2014. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boulevard, Cave Wall, The Collagist, Crab Orchard Review, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, Southern Humanities Review, and other journals. A recipient of a work-study scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, he lives in Connecticut with his wife and two young daughters.---------
Poem in which My Brother and I Manage Not to Laugh Out Loud
Branches groaning
in the breeze, our father
and his father pruned
the limbs they feared
would come down
on their own. Not noticing
we’d brought the iced tea
they talked through teeth
and clenched their tools
and swore at lifeless wood.
As daylight drove away
the cool of shade
the chainsaw coughed
and stopped like a curse
in the throat, clash
over which way to cut
cut short when half
the tree came crashing
through the fence and
shattered glass slid down
the pickup’s hood.
We learn from our mistakes
new ways to make
mistakes. In a day
or two the sunlight
pouring through their hole
would parch what little
lawn we had, a yellow
patch that burned each
summer when all the trees
but one grew green
with leaves. At the picnic table
we waited for silence
to break as beads
of sweat puddled around
the untouched pitcher
and slowly dried
in the stern light of day.